Rucksack arrival

Junior Reader is now the proud owner of a rucksack. Not a little, stick your toy cars in, rucksack. Nor even a larger, fit in a few plastic dinosaurs, type.

A proper rucksack – just a bit smaller than ones for adults. 30 litres, if you want to know, all with a good back support system, waist belt so it sits on the hips, and so on.

The rucksack comes through the generosity of my great aunt, a keen walker herself. Although she is not striding out ahead now (as often in the past), it seems appropriate that she is funding a rucksack, and with it, the potential for long walks.

So we started to talk to Junior Reader about rucksacks. Because, it turns out, get a reasonable one, and they will last. My red and green number (65 litres, two sections) is still going strong, 21 years on.

I remember a trip to Millet’s to get it. Others at school had done Duke of Edinburgh award, got all the hiking/camping kit; I didn’t. So it was my first proper rucksack, around the age of 19.

That rucksack was my main luggage for my first proper time abroad: my six months in Poland in my gap year. It went up on luggage racks, and squashed under seats. I’m sure it was used as a seat on numerous occasions.

When I finally made my way home – from the far north east of Poland (Bialystok), through Warsaw, and so on the long train route through to Frankfurt, that was how I brought my stuff home.

The rucksack saw me through conversations with a compartment of Armenians (them in Russian, me in Polish, trying to find middle ground), on a train when I was waiting for the conductor, and hoping I could buy my ticket on the train.

It made it through to Frankfurt, and a week with my penfriend. And then, it followed the well-worn school exchange route, back up the Rhine, through Belgium, over to the Channel on the ferry, and on to Dover, where my mum met me.

And on up to London. And finally, on up to Malvern. All by train, barring that ferry.
(Happy sigh.)

—

I won’t attempt to chart all the journeys that rucksack has made. I couldn’t begin to try. But there we sat, talking to Junior Reader about a few that we remembered.

Coming up to university – of course. Initial holiday trips – back to Poland, to Germany. Later, further afield: Russia, the Ukraine.

The rucksack took up its beast of burden load with every flat move (and there was one pretty much every year). And, of course, its regular, unsung hero role, carrying shopping back from the supermarket week after week after week.

It made it to the States and back. It journeyed around Italy (also, happily, by train).

The rucksack took Dan to Kenya and Tanzania, a few years back. (I don’t think I’ve ever shoehorned as much into one bag as I did into the rucksack that trip. Don’t quite know how it got packed up again.)

—

Little by little, the rucksack gained its own travel patina. The waist belt came adrift, and was not replaced. One of the top sections that may hold climbing equipment has recently come off, as has a useful little clip that holds one of the front straps in place.

I can see small dots of daylight through the bottom of the bag now, in places. It has been relegated to ‘bag to carry dirty washing home in’, and yet it does not complain.

It proved to be the right choice, time after time (and particularly on occasions in the metro systems around the world, facing a flight of stairs). I would hate to have had to do the same with a suitcase, even a wheelie one.

And so we tried to explain this a little to Junior Reader (trying hard not to be too boring about it). When something has accompanied you through adult life, and stood up to the task this faithfully, it’s hard not to become a little maudlin about it.

—

The new rucksack has been added to the corral of rucksacks in the attic. It’s not as heavy duty as my red-and-green, but it doesn’t need to be. Not yet.

This is a rucksack for transition: from childhood to adulthood (hoping it lasts that long). It’s for carrying your own clothes on future family holidays. It’s for nights away with grandparents, and maybe the odd solo camping trip some time.

Who knows what else it will do in its time. I suspect it will see quite a bit of London, in transit, and maybe some other European destinations. For now, it’s good to know that you can fit a soft toy of your choice in the top pocket.

—

There are various things that speak of adventure, of possibility. Being handed the keys to your first car is surely one of those moments. But I waited until my mid 30s for that point.

There were plenty of buses and trains and planes and ferries and undergrounds to go on before that. There were escalators and travelators, and lots of supermarket carparks to walk through, list in hand, ready to do the weekly shop.

A car will do much of that. But not all. It will give you independence, but it will not give you that sense of managing for yourself in quite the same way.

I don’t think I need to have the stick and spotted hanky to feel like I am heading out on an adventure. (It doesn’t hold much, for one thing.)

But a rucksack: that will take you to the ends of the earth and back, and still deal with transporting a special on potatoes, all for no extra fee.

 

Friday phrases: and it was still hot

Beginnings. Always tricky. Want to make a big entrance, grab your attention.

But what of endings? Also important. The time to make the big ‘boom’ at the end of the story, bow, and retreat, performance over.

Even though I seem to say more about In the Night Kitchen, I still love Where the Wild Things Are too. I’ve already written about the brilliant opening, but Sendak does more. He ends well too.

Part of the dreamlike effect of the book is the bendy wavy syntax and timescales that Sendak conjures up: the ‘days and weeks and years’ that it takes Max to get to the land where the wild things are.

What I love about the book is the way the spell reverses to bring Max home. We move from a year to a week to a day and Max is home.

But the true comfort comes with the return of the regular patterns of syntax, right at the end. Max is home – and the supper he missed through his wild antics is waiting for him.

Those final few words undercut the years and weeks and days. In Max’s world, it has been forever there and forever back.

But the magic, for him, what really matters, is that he does not miss out when he returns.

===

Where the Wild Things Are

“…Max stepped into his private boat and waved goodbye
and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day
and into the night of his very own room, where he found his supper waiting for him
and it was still hot.”

Maurice Sendak

[Read a little more of the ending, and about Sendak, at the link above.]

Lit Kid: boldly going

If I’ve written about books I associate with my mother, it’s only fair to look at my father’s influence too. And I have, already, quite a bit.

The Hobbit. My Friend Mr Leakey. Riki Tiki Tavi. These are just a few.

My dad wasn’t always around at story reading time. There were several years where he travelled for work – maybe fortunately for me, after the stage when I had learned to read for myself.

But before that stage, he did read aloud to me in the evenings – and he must have done so well, because I have so many of the phrasings still in my head.

I am still fairly sure that the choice of The Phantom Tolbooth came from him. And maybe also Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story, remembered by me particularly because of bits of the print being in red, and others in green.

It has taken me longer to learn that my father passed on some of the reading experiences he had been given himself – such as retrieving the book from a different place every night, as he did with Mr Leakey.

Another of these was to introduce me to science fiction, as his father had done for him, by starting me on John Wyndham’s The Crysalids.

He didn’t go wrong with either experience.

—

Sometimes, we can walk a path with someone, and our memory becomes all about that shared time together. But sometimes, we start the journey together, then one of us walks on, now knowing which way to go.

My father read The Hobbit to me. Later, when he was in his travelling phase, I took his copies of The Lord of the Rings, and soldiered on myself.

I skipped bits, I admit it. I was less into the battles. I wanted to know what was happening to the ring, and to Frodo and Sam.

Now at a later stage, I can show more interest in the characters of the other companions of the ring. I understand more of why they fight – and let’s face it, Peter Jackson’s films have done much to help demonstrate the impact of each of those characters.

But even so, as with The Hobbit, the quests are impossible without the quiet strength and perseverance of ‘the little people’, even as the bigger ones struggle with destiny and enmity between peoples and other things I didn’t really grasp at 9.

—

Similarly, my father pointed me to other classic reads that I have gone on to recommend to others. Not all of these are necessarily ‘kid’ lit – but both would surely fit with what is now known as young adult fiction.

One was the Dune series, by Frank Herbert; another, the Dragon series by Anne McCaffrey.

Dune has had a higher focus by dint of some adaptations. I’m not much of a fan of the 1984 film (though Sting is intriguingly cast in it), but the mini series was very well done, and faithful to the books.

Again, at whatever stage I read Dune, I certainly didn’t get it all. I didn’t read oil crisis into it (the books hinge on the availability of ‘spice’ as a similar must-have for trade, travel and more), and I’m sure there was more that the author intended.

But it was one of those early books to convey clearly what life could be like in a very different environment – one where water is so precious that your body water does not belong to you after you die, but is returned to the tribe.

That may sound gruesome, but it’s not meant to be. There is a fine combination of expressing the essentials – what has to be done to survive – and the choices and alliances that can be dared at higher levels of society.

Whatever your feelings about science fiction, read Dune (the first in the series) and the next few books, if only for some of the best modern Greek tragedy I’ve come across.

The Dragon books are also part of a very long series, and as you might expect, the earlier ones are better. If you like the ‘whole alternative world’ approach of the likes of The Hobbit, and fancy a few more dragons in your story, it’s a good place to begin.

Again, I was impressed by the ability to conjure up a whole world, intact, seeing the forces depending on each other, as well as the way they suggest opportunity, even for the unlikeliest of characters.

—-

But perhaps one of my enduring reading legacies from my father is an appreciation of a good short story. Science fiction is often seen to be about overblown space opera sized novels, but it doesn’t have to be.

Part of my own writing this spring is delving into this area. I have been fortunate enough to read some really good science fiction short stories.

I may not be anywhere near them yet, but I think I can follow a good example – or at least set off in the right direction.

Lit Kid: learning from the greats

One of my great joys in lit kid life is giving Junior Reader access to books I read as a child. Whether as picture books, or chapter books, we are conveying something of the joy of story, character, illustration – and magic.

So what did my parents read? And what did they pass on to me? Because I realise that, while I have happily indoctrinated my way along with Junior Reader, I don’t always know what was an ‘heirloom read’ in the first place.

In a few cases, I do know. So it seems only fair to share those that I took to as well – in part, because I knew that they were part of my parents’ lives.

In this case, the instances are from my mother – and from her own books, some of which I now look after.

—

The Kittie-Poosies

You may not be too taken with the title, and that’s OK. But you need to know about the wise and loving Mama Pudditat, chief character and mother of the kittie-poosies.

This is one of two picture books my mother owned which I have held onto. They have a special place on the special books bookcase, which conveys something of the esteem in which I hold them.

The kittie poosies are born into Mama Pudditat’s fine home – but we need time to know more. We need time to explore this place, where Mama Pudditat has pictures of mice even in places that the Mouse Man himself may have not thought to decorate.

There are plenty of books out there which seek to convey an atmosphere within a ‘dear little house’. There are the hugely detailed worlds of Brambly Hedge, or the home of Mrs Tittlemouse.

But Mama Pudditat’s home is lovingly described in detail. In some respects, this was probably one of my early interiors reads without knowing it.

Indeed it must be, as Mama Pudditat makes her own curtains and paints her own stool for the sitting room – all carefully shown, picture by picture. (My childhood soul thrilled to the notion of gold stars on the ceiling and curtains, even if I don’t feel the need for them now.)

And Mama Pudditat is happy to give the tour, especially to her friend Mrs Pattypaws, because: the house also contains a nursery, where the kittie poosies will live.

If this sounds all too saccharine, forgive me. Anthropomorphic, yes, but then so are many other fine examples in children’s literature,  and we still read them.

Mama Pudditat goes on in the next story to name her kittens – and later to shore up her source of income, through making and selling pink sugar mice.

Sugar mice are no doubt less common these days – or perhaps less exciting and more quietly packaged than the factory items. But there is still something special about them – and surely some of that comes from Mama Pudditat.

A few years ago, I was thrilled to discover that Mama Pudditat had also made it into German, as Mama Miezemau. It also restored to me the front cover illustration (the cover long being missing on the English version we have).

—

Master Bunny at the Seaside

I am grateful to be able to show you the covers of both books (view the links above), because a great deal of the charm of the books is in the illustrations.

Master Bunny is told by Alison Winn, about whom I have found out little so far, but the pictures are by the well-known illustrator Molly Brett, whose books I also enjoyed as a little girl.

This book is like a cross between an animal story and a strip cartoon, with every illustration and story pane numbered. With plentiful bunnies in the story, this gives us a clue as to what pleasantries might have happened, had Peter Rabbit and his father been less keen on adventures.

Sometimes certain book phrase enter a family’s collective consciousness. In this case, the key phrase is at pane 29:

“That night Mrs Bun [Master Bunny’s mother] gave Master Bunny a lovely hot bath and brushed his ears until they shone like silk.”

I can still recall my mother pretending to do the same to my brother, stroking his ears. In fact, the ear stroking comes at a key point in the story, because soon after, Master Bunny is off on holiday to visit his cousins – and find adventure.

There are plenty of details that children will enjoy and find real – from the pride in getting new clothes, bucket and spade to next bumping straight into a lamppost and needing a plaster.

The cousins have plenty of fun, between pillow fights, water fights at the seaside and a tea party which includes:

“…strawberries and cream/

Swiss rolls and chocolate biscuits. Everybody ate a great deal.”

Master Bunny’s final adventure involves crawling into a box kite on a windy day, and being by the seaside, you can guess something of what happens next. But rest assured: all ends happily.

—

I know something of other books my mother owned. I have mentioned the Famous Fives in hardback, and indeed Junior Reader can now return from a visit to my parents with another Famous Five out on loan.

My mother was also seemingly keen on increasing the colour in the books she owned – several Famous Fives copies have been painted in in water colour, as have a couple of the plates in Master Bunny.

There are a few (now worn) Flower Fairy books too that are hers – pages part in, part out, and their stitched binding clear to see. There is something of the love and time that was poured into these reads that is still greatly attractive.

One thing I can be sure of from these experiences is that I inherited a love of good illustration. Whether through Molly Brett, Kate Greenaway or Cicely Mary Barker (Flower Fairy books), I learned something of how the right pictures can transport you into the world of the story – and keep you coming back again.

I may favour more varied illustrators now – and a number are much more satiric than the safeties of the illustrations I’ve referenced above. But they all make a picture book special.

And as you know by now, if you’ve read a few of my posts, picture books are among the most special things of all.

Lit Kid: serial delights

Having skipped with you through some of the delights of picture book series last time, it’s now the point to change pace.

Taking a series into chapter book land is a different kind of endeavour. There may be pictures still, but the pictures alone will not add the same unifying elements to the stories.

You need good characters – and exciting situations. It’s time to move beyond everyday scenarios, and into the area of what we would like to have happen.

It’s also time for team dynamics, extending the cast with new characters, and finding other means to convey consistency across the series.

—

Astrosaurs and Cows in Action

I’ve alluded to these series before, and the author Steve Cole clearly understands what’s needed to create a series that keeps on giving.

Collector cards are a popular choice – not just here, but in Hiccup the Viking stories too. They appeal to the Top Trumps afficianados, keen to compare relative strengths and weaknesses of heroes and villains (and even dragons).

Add in the elements that will introduce a new reader to the universe, wherever they’ve come in to the series: some back story for how the main characters came together, what their mission is. Now the scene is set.

But don’t stop there. Add in a map too, particularly if your heroes are gradually exploring more of a given universe. For those keenly following the series, the map is the reminder of previous missions and places visited.

All set? Then make sure your cast is appealing. Borrow from other known ensembles: particularly space ship crews. You need the boffin; the engineer; the loyal second-in-command; the communications person to help you explore messages in unknown languages.

You may have a hot-head, ready for a fight – or a hero who is also just as keen on eating as on battles. There are types, sure, but there is potential for nuances too – especially if a new mission causes them to alter, or to question loyalties.

When I learned more recently that Steve Cole had kept Dr Who books etc going during the years between the Old and the New series, it all made sense. Puns, moving your characters on from one desperate situation to another, one species trying to wipe out another: it’s all there.

Astrosaurs has as much space as you want – and an acknowledged enmity between plant eaters and meat eaters. Cows in Action is all about time travel – and there’s plenty of times to visit too. Natural series-building empires, both.

—

Secret Agent Jack Stalwart

In a similar vein, the author of the Jack Stalwart books has a natural basis for extending a series. This time, it’s geography.

Plenty of other writers use different geographic locations for their books. It adds variety, allows you to include local places and customs.

Square this with writing for kids, and you have a series that informs as well as entertains. Plus, as we’re dealing with a boy spy, of course there are gadgets.

Junior Reader’s first port of call would be the gadgets page in each book. These give you a taster of the possible adventures to come. Some gadgets repeat in different books, others are known just in their individual book.

An interesting element to the Jack Stalwart books is the little underlying current of backstory: Jack’s brother, also a boy spy, who has since disappeared, although his parents think he’s at school abroad. Some of the stories help Jack, and us, learn a little more, and come closer to finding him.

Some of the books work better than others, it has to be said. Some kids may take the opening info on a given country and want to know more – others will just come along for the ride, and that’s OK too.

—

Pippi Longstocking

I feel the need to offer a few earlier series too, and Pippi is someone where you can’t wait to find out her next adventure.

Imagine a girl who she lives alone (apart from a horse and a pet monkey). She does not lack for money, thanks to her father’s profession of pirate king. She is hugely strong – and fully able to look after herself.

Into her world come next door neighbour children, Tommy and Annika. Their mother disapproves of Pippi, but Tommy and Annika love their adventures with the thoroughly unconventional Pippi.

Each chapter gives you a new adventure with Pippi, whether taking on burglars or even attempting a day in school. It is easy to keep reading and to share Pippi’s distrust of adult norms and preferences, choosing instead to live as she likes.

There is also some plot movement across the books – including a reunion with Pippi’s father. Right at the end of the third book, Pippi, a little like Peter Pan or Christopher Robin, faces the possibility of growing up, and uses her own resources to guard against it.

Ideally, of course, there would be neverending stories of Pippi. For, you see, there are never-ending ways in which children’s preferences and adults’ do not match – and Pippi is the catalyst for exploring these.

For wider exploration of Pippi’s influence – and different illustrator styles – have a look at Tygertale’s treatment, where Pippi is included in the series of ‘Bad Girls’.

—

Anne of Green Gables

Another well-loved series, the character of Anne, making her home on Prince Edward Island in Canada, is one that remains deservedly popular.

Anne and Pippi have various things in common – auburn hair, often in plaits, and a certain stubbornness. Anne, maybe less so than Pippi, is also in love with language, beauty, learning – but, back in common with Pippi, makes plenty of mistakes along the way.

With eleven decent-length books in the series, there is much to munch through, once the Anne bug has bitten. And unlike some stories, L. M. Montgomery is not afraid to show Anne moving on through time, into work, marriage, motherhood and more.

Part of the delight of the books is the way Anne’s individual experiences move around the emotions, often evoking humour, but also anger, sadness, grief, loneliness, and so on. Anne may learn from her earlier experiences but that does not automatically make the path ahead of her straight forward.

In a sense, particularly in the early books, it seems possible for Anne to have limitless adventures and experiences – and indeed she covers many of the possibilities we might think of, and more besides.

Whether having disasters over dyeing her hair, or dealing with meanness from classmates, celebrating having a great best friend, or dealing with teasing, Anne is both the person we might like to be, as well as the person we often are, right now.

—

There are so many other series to choose from, but all of those mentioned above use ways in which characters may grow, explore new situations, but still with plenty of variety and novelty.

Whether we prefer believable worlds – or created ones – series tap in to many of the situations we find ourselves in as children.

We want characters who will take us to new places, but we want ones who are not so far from us: ones with flaws, ones who go through difficulties as well.

Sometimes we may have to face hard truths: such as the end of a given book series. But we can be assured that there are plenty more out there to choose from – and plenty of reasons to see just why they are so easy to keep reading.